Australian based, conservative leaning commentary on politics, media, life, the multiverse and whatever else crosses my mind. Home of the best widely ignored opinions on the 'net.

Thursday, February 09, 2017

Hard to believe

As noted at Axios:

A group of former senior U.S. officials from past
Republican administrations have called for a tax on carbon emissions to
help fight climate change, per the Financial Times.
The group — known as the Climate Leadership Council — is led by James
Baker, former secretary of state for George H.W. Bush and Treasury
secretary for Ronald Reagan; George P. Schultz, former secretary of
state under Reagan; and Henry Paulson, former Treasury secretary under
George W. Bush.

They are scheduled to meet with White House
officials later today, including Vice President Mike Pence, Jared
Kushner and Director of the National Economic Council Gary Cohn, to
present their plan for addressing global warming. They argue the
proposal — which would tax carbon emissions at $40 per ton, with all of
the revenue recycled in dividends paid back to the public — will "embody
the principles of free markets and limited government."

Why this matters:
The proposal puts influential members of the GOP on the record as
favoring action on climate change — a position that is not publicly
supported by establishment Republicans, as most GOP members have
promised a rollback of emissions regulations now that they have control
of both houses of Congress and the White House.

This is the exact policy that James Hansen (actually, a registered Republican) has supported for a decade or two, no? I don't know whether I've ever seen much discussion amongst economists about how well it might work, but it's probably 100 times better than the current Republican policy - do nothing.

The true blockage to this ever being possible would be Republicans - including Trump - acknowledging that climate change is real, after all their years of denial and conspiracy mongering.

Can't see it happening, but it's encouraging that some Republicans - and old ones at that!* - are willing to push for it.

* Maybe I have to qualify my continual dismissal of anyone over 80 being unreliable on everything!